


Prohibition

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: BDSM elements, Bets, Established Relationship, Instruction, Intimacy, Kink, M/M, Oral, Rough Sex, Spanking, Teasing, dares, first class verse, inappropriate use of powers, play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:46:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7792930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Charles snorts. “Look, I understand what you’re doing.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Do you?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“No. And I don’t understand for a moment how not ‘doing it’ - don’t you look at me like that,” Charles says, pointing at Erik via his reflection when Erik arches a brow. “I fail to see how not using every ability to our advantage is in any way, in any rational consideration, a good idea. That, in essence, leads me to no other conclusion than to think that there <i>is</i> no rational consideration behind it, but rather you preying on my susceptibility to engage in acts of stupidity for our mutual amusement, and my utter inability to ever pass up a dare.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>The silence lingers between them, until Charles stands with a huff, casting about in his pockets.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“I need a bloody cigarette.”</i>
</p>
<p>Just a bit of fun, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prohibition

**Author's Note:**

> Help us, we have fallen and we can't get up.
> 
> All typos are notorious and on us entirely. Sorry in advance!

“What do you mean, ‘don’t do it’,” Charles asks, eyes wide.

Erik doesn’t look towards him, watching himself in the mirror instead as he settles a half-Windsor in sleek black silk against his throat. His smile curves sinuous. “I mean precisely that, Professor.”

Charles stares at his friend’s reflection, and does not even allow himself the pleasure of appreciating getting to look at Erik Lehnsherr from front and back all at once. No, instead he squints from where he’s seated on the edge of a hotel bed, up and dressed for hours - early enough to enjoy the continental breakfast - while Erik returned sluggishly from Charles’ room to his own to shower and dress.

He’s far from sluggish now though, smiling like the cat that got the cream.

“Erik,” Charles says, as patiently as he would to one of his students. “We’re meeting today with the CIA. Whether or not that means anything to you…”

“Don’t be patronizing.”

Oh, as if his sing-song tone and sly smile isn’t exactly, specifically, precisely that? Charles snorts. “Look, I understand what you’re doing.”

“Do you?”

“No. And I don’t understand for a moment how not ‘doing it’ - don’t you look at me like that,” Charles says, pointing at Erik via his reflection when Erik arches a brow. “I fail to see how not using every ability to our advantage is in any way, in any rational consideration, a good idea. That, in essence, leads me to no other conclusion than to think that there _is_ no rational consideration behind it, but rather you preying on my susceptibility to engage in acts of stupidity for our mutual amusement, and my utter inability to ever pass up a dare.”

The silence lingers between them, until Charles stands with a huff, casting about in his pockets.

“I need a bloody cigarette.”

Erik grunts softly and reaches into his pocket for a pack, tossing it back towards his friend who catches it with a sigh before shaking a cigarette out into his palm. He finds a lighter on the nightstand and flicks it several times before the tobacco takes and he exhales a cloud of grey towards the ceiling.

“It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s clever,” Erik replies with a shrug, finally turning away from preening over himself in the mirror. “Because considering who they are, they will expect us to use our powers to learn something we aren’t supposed to, and proving them right will only help their cause, Charles, not our own.”

Charles gapes at him, then quickly shakes his head, dragging hard on his cigarette before using it to point at his friend. “As if bloody fireworks go off when I do it,” he accuses. “How would they know?”

“Because you would tell them.”

“Oh, for God’s sake - why? Why would I?”

“You always do,” Erik says, striding step by languid step closer. He plucks the cigarette from between Charles’ lips as he drags, ignoring his whine, and holds it to his own instead. “You are a consummate egotist, who can’t help but show off when you’ve discovered something new.”

Charles’ eyes narrow sharply. He reaches for his cigarette but is denied, and huffs out a curt breath. “You’re full of it, d’you know that? This is no different than ‘Charles, do you think I could levitate you down from the roof to the grounds?’ or ‘Charles, your ability can’t reach all the way to China, I imagine.’ You’re daring me.”

“I resent that implication.”

“It isn’t an implication, Erik, it’s an accusation. Give me back my cigarette.”

Erik just takes another drag of it and raises a brow. Charles scoffs something and turns on his heel to march towards the bathroom, returning immediately when he finds his second wind.

“No. No, I won’t make you give it to me. I won’t. Because that’s what you want me to do.”

“I actually want you to do the exact opposite,” Erik reminds him. “I want you to not make anyone do anything, and not fiddle around in anyone’s mind to find out information they would otherwise not give you.”

“It’s the bloody CIA, Erik! Do you honestly think they’re going to be forthright with us? ‘Oh, yes, of course, you perceived threats against our national security, let’s lay it all out.’”

Erik’s brow lifts a little higher. He waits, all the while letting Charles’ claimed cigarette burn lower and lower. He waits until Charles - who to his credit, does not just shove his fingers to his temple and make Erik quite literally go fuck himself - finally sees his point.

Of course they won’t. Of course they’re gathering intelligence on Erik and Charles and all that they say. Of course they’re being, at best, passively deceptive.

And yet, despite the truth of that, this is nonsense. It is every bit of nonsense that Charles declared it to be from the start. He needn’t ease himself into Erik’s mind to know that he’s absolutely amusing himself and nothing more - that’s evident plenty in the twitch of a smile that Erik tries to suppress, and the way the muscles beneath his eyes gently lift.

“Fine,” Charles says, voice scarcely above a whisper. “Now give me back my cigarette, please.”

Erik takes one more drag and turns the thing in his hands before stepping closer to press the filter past Charles’ lips. Their eyes stay on the other, a challenge in itself, and the gaze only breaks when Erik's smile widens and Charles snorts, rolling his eyes and turning away towards the window.

“It’s dangerous.”

“Living is dangerous, my friend,” Erik tells him cheerfully, walking past Charles and carefully around him to get to the bathroom and wash his hands. “And it’s good for us to remember how those without our spectacular gifts walk this earth.”

“Erik.”

“Appreciation and disgust need not be mutually exclusive,” Erik tells him over his shoulder.

“I worry for you,” Charles responds. “I worry that someday, I will awaken to find that you’ve choked to death.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, on your own bullshit.”

Erik laughs loudly, before clamping it off with a grin, all teeth and dimples and little lines around his eyes. Charles tries not to make his shiver visible when Erik glances across his shoulder. Instead, he sucks a curt drag off the cigarette and strides closer. Setting his back against the door frame, Charles regards his friend, amused.

“So tell me,” Charles asks. “If I manage it, and you know I’m a man of my word, I’ll confess if I do it despite you - tell me though, what’s in it for me?”

“If you go the day without?”

“Yes. What do I possibly stand to gain from this agreement?”

“A better understanding of human nature, taken at the face value with which they treat each other?”

“Bollocks,” Charles snorts, nose wrinkling as he smiles. “Up the ante, darling. Make it worth my while.”

Erik hums and turns to Charles fully, taking the step necessary to stand nearly chest to chest with him. He holds out his fingers for the cigarette, and after a moment, Charles places the filter against them.

“What could you possibly want that I don’t already give you?” Erik asks him, parting his lips to release the smoke as a slow coil rather than a cloud before him. “My ass, my heart, my soul… exclusive rights to leave embarrassing marks on my throat that the kids will ask about at the dining room table.”

“Do they?”

“They make remarks,” Erik says, smile spreading as Charles laughs.

“Well,” his professor says, a hand against Erik’s shoulder. “Since I’m doing this in service to you, perhaps tonight - if I make good on our agreement - you’ll be in service to me.”

Erik draws himself up a little taller, eyes hooding and back straightening when Charles draws his fingers beneath the lapel of his jacket, knuckles grazing his chest. “Last night with my head between your legs wasn’t enough?”

“I don’t only mean prurient sexual favors,” grins Charles. “I mean everything. Drawing my bath and helping me undress. Turning down my sheets and making me a drink.”

He pushes to his toes a little, so that when Erik takes a drag of the cigarette, he can hold his lips pressed to the opposite side. It’s scandalous. It’s risky, already. If the CIA is observing them at distance - and God knows they probably are - then they’ve already committed crimes enough to make them enemies of the state, simply by sharing these affections together.

But Charles knows they aren’t listening. They have Erik’s room bugged, but not his own. Or at least, they don’t now that Charles has compelled their watcher to disregard that particular frequency.

“What do you say to that,” Charles asks in a whisper against his friend’s ear.

Erik exhales slowly and tilts his head for Charles to access his neck should he so wish. The thought is delightful, seeing Charles squirm all day in his seat trying not to fall into his usual habit of feigning a mildly uncomfortable headache, only to have to draw him a bath at the end of the day.

Simple.

Easy.

As it so often is with them, clearly.

“Do you want me to call you ‘sir’, too?” He asks, chin still tilted but eyes down as Charles pulls back to look at him. Erik grins.

Charles squints a little, tilting his chin up a little. When he laughs, it’s loud and earnest, and he shakes his head. Bringing his hand to the back of Erik’s neck, he tugs himself up and Erik down and plants a kiss upon one cheek, patting the other as he settles back to his heels and steps away.

“I need neither special abilities nor force of will to make that happen, Erik, when you so evidently want it.”

And with the theft of another of Erik’s cigarettes, and a bright smile that puts a wrinkle in the bridge of his nose, their agreement is sealed.

\---

God, what a drudgery. Erik is, as bloody ever, more right than Charles’ pride would ever allow him to admit. The CIA gives them half-truths, threads of information of which the greater tapestry is concealed. Charles certainly feels the pluck of curiosity, but his mind works well enough without his ability to guess what they’re getting at.

They don’t trust them.

They want to know how they can use them.

They want to know how great a threat they are.

And they’re running nearly hysterical levels of analysis on them from countless monitoring systems, as Erik remarks warmly on how good the coffee is and Charles agrees with a laugh that yes, the weather is far nicer here than England, nevermind that he lives in bloody Westchester County, New York.

Charles gives Erik a particularly pained look from across the table, as much from the tedium as from the awareness that he could in an instant gather up every speck of classified information from the assembled both seen and unseen and they could be on their way.

_I hate this._

Erik doesn’t even glance towards him, keeping his eyes, instead, on the men before them who continue their cool professional smalltalk as though they’re being paid by the word. His eyes cast to one of the knives still on the table, serrated and sharp to cut tough steak, once in awhile. Charles lets out a slow breath through his nose, funneling his frustration into silence instead of an outward expression of just how desperately he wants to fall face first into the remainder of his ice cream.

_I know you can hear me, you bastard._

Erik’s fake laughter grates as much as his deliberate indifference.

“I can’t say I do,” Erik says, smiling at Charles before turning to one of the agents. “Germany has rather changed since last I was there, I’m afraid. I was very young when I left. I still have aspects of the language, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t know one street from another, if I returned. Seems almost not worth making the trip.”

God, but Charles can all but hear the clatter of transcriptionists at their typewriters, taking his words down in triplicate. He wishes he could hear it. He wishes he could compel them to type out something more interesting, like the fact that Erik mumbles in his sleep and has a sweet tooth so intense as to be considered degenerate.

“Do you still have family there?”

Charles’ lips purse at this. Erik, to his absolute credit, merely shakes his head with a small smile. What is the point of this, Charles wants to ask. Why are they being interrogated, in the guise of a friendly get-together to better establish relations between blah blah bloody blah. And how dare they, how dare they ask about Erik’s family? Even if they don’t know, which Charles is reasonably sure they do. Even if they can’t guess, which Charles would bloody well hope they can.

_I’m going to make them eat their own ties until they choke._

“And you, professor?”

“No one in Germany, no,” he says aloud, with a winning smile and to the sound of easy laughter. “But certainly you’re not here to listen to us go on about such mundanities. Surely we’re not here for that. I believe all of our concern centers on security, for each other and our country.”

_And ourselves, and me not making them gag on their own gaudy bits of polyester._

One of the agents laughs in reply, ducking his head and shifting his shoulders in the most unnatural mimic of a natural motion that Charles has ever seen. It takes a lot not to roll his eyes as the man adjusts his microphone and agrees that yes, they are here for much greater things.

Another round of coffees is ordered, and Charles notes that the knife shifts just subtly to avoid being grasped up with the rest of the dirty cutlery. Erik sets his arm to the table and begins another conversation, a smooth segue into a news article that had recently graced the front page. After that, they all speak in metaphor, subtly veiled innuendo and untruths.

Charles wants to scream. He wants to scream at Erik that he will scream. But when he reaches out to tell him, a smooth reply seeps against his skin, projected as hard as possible by a man who hasn’t the power to push his thoughts as Charles does.

_You look like you’ve swallowed several flies and a lemon. Relax._

Surprised by this very clear, very vocal and yet unspoken response, Charles’ smile twitches wider in earnest as he tries not to laugh. He does settle then, certainly not just because Erik told him to do so, but rather that in their shared moment that passes unnoticed, unseen, unheard and unmonitored, Charles can feel Erik’s relative ease. He knows all too well that his friend carries pain the likes of which suffocates Charles to even come near. He knows just as well that Erik has, to a greater credit than Charles could give him in a lifetime, learned to live with this pain.

He is an extraordinary man.

No.

He is an extraordinary mutant, and it gives Charles a particular twinge of pride to think of him as such.

“Of course we would be happy to assist in means that are accessible to us, for the well-being of all involved,” Charles says, in answer to a statement to which he was only half-listening. “All, meaning the nation, entirely, but beyond that, humanity itself.”

There’s a pause from the agent speaking, who after a moment of consideration adds, “And yourselves.”

Charles’ smile is impossibly bright, effortlessly easy, and altogether unperturbed. “Are we not also members of humanity? Are we not also citizens of this country - in fact, the world as a whole?”

One of the agents visibly pales and sits back, plastering a smile to his own face. “Of course. Equality for all citizens is where America stands apart from the rest of the world. It’s what makes the country great, even as Europe picks itself up -”

“America entered the war rather late,” Erik adds softly, his own smile just as sweet as Charles’ is. “And being apart from the mainland makes it easier to recover from a crisis they helped cause and didn’t stay around to fix.” The table remains eerily quiet, and Erik looks to Charles a moment before taking a breath and easing the tension down with a lighter tone.

“Gentlemen, the importance of this meeting is one that won’t be recognized for many years. Perhaps decades. Men we see as geniuses now, forward thinkers, inventors, role models, were considered in their time to be disrupting society, causing havoc, thinking wrongly, pushing for a future that could never possibly happen.” Erik takes up his cup and raises it to Charles. “Gentlemen, we are the future. Here, in this room.”

_And we will outlive all of you_ , Charles feels against his skin like a whisper.

He sits up a little taller, with a glance to Erik and no words - spoken or thought - needed to further convey the pleasure seen in his smile. The others in the room bolster at Erik’s words, and relax a little in their hesitation. They have demonstrated their intelligence, their willingness, their attentiveness to this occasion. They have demonstrated their drive. The conversation continues, exercises in how they and their students might have helped to augment past operations and what they could offer in the future.

Charles doesn’t pry into any human in the room. He doesn’t pry into those countless number outside of it, those merely going about their day or those listening in and taking undoubtedly scrupulous notes on the two strangers in their midst. He pries only into Erik now and again, to make a joke or share an unspoken suggestion.

Charles behaves himself.

And by the time the meeting is done and they retire to rest a little and change before dinner and drinks, Charles is positively preening. He glances sidelong at Erik in the elevator. When Erik glances back Charles faces forward again, smile threatening to widen beyond its tell-tale twitching.

“See you in a bit, then,” Charles says, as the elevator stops at Erik’s floor.

“I suppose you will,” Erik replies, making no move to touch Charles or look at him until just before the door opens, where he leans his shoulder against Charles’ and pushes off of him as he exits the elevator.

Only then does Charles allow himself to listen, to open his mind to the mingling mess of thoughts and ideas scattering all over the building and through the cables in the walls. Only then does he drop his head back against the shivering elevator wall and watch the numbers tick away to his own floor. A hum of voices enters his head, a tapestry of threads that he could pull apart strand by strand but altogether forming a picture that does not in the image is presents concern him enough to do so.

Good.

Very good.

When he gets out, Erik is already standing there, not even fold out of place, nor is his breathing elevated, the bastard. Charles snorts and raises a brow, watching Erik gesture towards the door with an exaggerated little bow.

“After you.”

“Much obliged.”

_What happened to discretion?_

“You’ll see,” Erik answers aloud, drawing a wry look from Charles across his shoulder as he unlocks his room and enters. Charles isn’t given time to ask what Erik means by that. He isn’t given time to even chide him about needing to be more subtle while they’re here. There’s a moment, only, long enough to draw a breath before the door closes and locks with a snap of Erik’s fingers and his friend’s mouth is against him.

Charles laughs, wrapping his arms around Erik’s middle as his neck is roughly kissed, teased with teeth and licked over into noisy suckling that will no doubt leave marks Charles will have to erase from the memory of those who see them later in the evening. For now it doesn’t matter. What matters is the way that he fits against Erik’s chest and the youthful ardor they share, like that of a prank successfully executed.

“You’re a menace,” Charles moans, turning his head enough to capture Erik’s lips against his own.

Erik kisses back with absolute abandon, grinning against Charles’ mouth and stroking his hair back from his face with broad palms.

“Was it hard?” Erik murmurs. “Keeping that gorgeous mind to yourself? Listening to their lies and their false promises and knowing that if you looked -”

“No,” Charles lies, tugging Erik's hair as he presses closer to kiss him again. Erik starts to walk, careful steps forward so Charles can take them backward to match.

“Were you hard?” He counters with a grin.

“Watching you turn that knife around, slow enough that no one noticed. Ready to use it at an instant’s notice the next time they were rude…” Charles begins, licking his bottom lip between his teeth and pinning it there with his teeth. He waits just long enough for Erik to search his eyes and for his own to hood, and then he snorts a laugh, nose wrinkled. “Honestly, do you really think me such a degenera- Erik!”

The bed comes up quickly behind his knees and with another laugh, Charles scrambles back as if to escape. Erik’s quick pursuit makes short work of that endeavor and Charles welcomes his kiss, bending back beneath him with a warm hum caught between their mouths. He clutches the lapels of Erik’s jacket, bringing him down against him and pushing up his own body to meet the larger, stronger one above it.

_And you_ , he asks, as Erik makes short work of Charles’ tie with one swift tug, their mouths tangled twisting. _Knowing you had such control over me?_

Erik hums, a sound that tilts to a soft moan. He catches Charles’ hand and slips it between his legs so he can feel.

Half-hard.

Pleasantly aching.

“You were perfect,” he promises. “We were perfect. And we achieved the perfect level of trust that they were expecting, without ever pushing a thought out of place. We know nothing we shouldn’t know, so that nothing can slip.”

“Stop gloating,” Charles snorts, though he rewards it - he _encourages_ it, despite himself - by stroking upward between Erik’s legs. Gathering the weight of his balls and drawing them up, he squeezes against his thickening shaft until Erik’s lips part with a soft puff of pleasure. “Anyway, this is me doing you a kindness, old friend.”

“A kindness it is,” Erik agrees, nose pinching in a wrinkle as he grins wide.

“Especially since, as agreed, it’s you that ought to be doing kindnesses for me.”

“At your service.”

“You’d bloody well better be after all that tedium,” Charles says. “Thinking about you as my own personal cabin boy for the night is the only thing that kept me going.”

“You are truly incorrigible,” Erik tells him, kissing Charles again and pulling reluctantly back from the hand so welcome between his legs. He kisses over his throat, down to his chest, still buttoned up beneath a crisp shirt, lower still. “Never change.”

“Take it off,” Charles laughs, spreading his arms as Erik kisses up again and begins to work the buttons of his own shirt with quick and clever fingers. “I am a man who knows what he likes.”

“You have impeccable taste, Charles, in all but your clothes.” Erik nips a quick kiss against Charles’ collarbone and meets his eyes again. “How may I be of service, then?”

The professor lifts a brow, mildly affronted. “I’ll have you know that paisley patterns are particularly en vogue right now.”

“In traffic cone orange?”

“Yes, in traffic cone orange. Who elected you the arbiter of taste?”

“Self-appointed,” Erik grins. “I go where I am needed.”

“Take mine off too, then,” Charles responds primly, lips quirking to a sideways smile as his brow arches and drops again. “If you find them so distasteful you’ll see me in nothing at all.”

“And so will the dinner party and cocktail hour preceding,” Erik says, mimicking the stiff northern American accent of their host. Charles purses his lips and squints, then squints more as Erik blinks, fingers stilled against the buttons of Charles’ shirt. “You asked me to be butler to you. This is what a butler does. Reminds you of your appointments, ensures you’re prepared for them…”

“I am going to shag you before that party, Erik Lehnsherr,” he begins, but at the purr of his friend’s name, Charles pauses, and sighs. “A moment, please.” And setting his fingers to his temple, he seeks out whomever listening to the echo of their voices, sent through microphone and cord and earphones.

Erik continues to dutifully work open Charles’ shirt as he listens through the mess of thoughts for what he's seeking. Erik knows immediately when Charles hears something worth pursuing. Erik cocks his own head to mirror Charles’ expression.

He slowly strips his shirt from himself as he settles heavy over Charles’ thighs, making a soft sound of pleasure as he stretches his neck. Erik grasps for Charles’ collar, gently tugging him up to sit so he can peel his shirt off as well, making a show of his distaste for the color.

“Erik.”

“Yes, sir?” He grins.

“I’m trying to concentrate.”

“And you are doing an admirable job of it, sir,” Erik assures him, dropping his hands to work Charles’ belt next. “But is there really anything worth listening to?”

“I would know if you let me look,” Charles laughs, ducking out of a kiss and huffing in put-upon displeasure as Erik licks his jaw.

“My guess,” Erik says, pressing his own fingers to his temple, narrowing his eyes in delight. “Is they are far too preoccupied trying to understand how their recordings, all of their recordings, could all of a sudden turn to white noise, when no one had been in their storage or base room to tamper with them.”

Erik's grin widens. “Such a loss. Tragic death of such delicate, magnet sensitive tapes.”

Charles’ eyes widen, and he blanches. For a moment, he can’t form words. He can scarcely breathe, and Erik opening up his trousers is hardly helping. “A-...”

“That’s not usually how ‘thank you’ starts.”

“ _All_ of them,” Charles asks. “You - did you -”

Erik makes a curious sound, like a cat spoken to but uncertain yet as to whether it will acknowledge further. He tugs Charles’ pants and trousers down at the same time, standing from the bed to remove his shoes and get it all off. Charles gapes at him.

“Erik,” he says, sitting bolt upright and grabbing Erik’s wrists just as he’s about to finally divest Charles of his unfortunate garments. “Please, before my heart gives and I shake this mortal coil, please tell me that you - you, who is a mutant known and recorded for your control of metal and magnets - that you did not wipe the entire library of the CIA.”

Erik hums placidly and presses a kiss to Charles’ forehead, right where it wrinkles in his upset. 

“They know only enough to suppose I need my hands to perform my feats of magic,” he whispers. “They cannot fathom the range of our gifts, Charles. How could I have done something in a place I haven't been? And had I, and you with your power had made them forget it, why are there tapes yet intact from today's stunningly bland interrogations?”

Erik nuzzles Charles next, and kisses the tip of his nose. “Discombobulate,” he murmurs. “Create mild and inexplicable disorder for the greater good. All before dinner.”

Were Charles not on the verge of unconsciousness, he would be particularly proud of the blue streak that he lets rip in a snarl before dropping back to the bed with his hands pressed to his place. A deep, rattling breath drawn through his fingers is held long enough that his lungs burn. Just as Erik’s hands still against his hips, curiously observing his mildly traumatized friend, Charles’ breath explodes back out in a wild laugh that in both frenzy and volume is only a hair short of mental.

“I hate you,” he declares. “You know that, don’t you? I loathe you entirely, you and your little twiddles with their devices and oh God, Erik, why must you be this way?” Charles laughs, letting his arms drop to the bed and regarding his friend, who grins bright-toothed down at him. Charles’ cock has softened a bit in his distress, but he lays before Erik - well-dressed - entirely bare and half-hysterical.

“You wouldn't love me any other way,” Erik points out, ducking his head to kiss a sharp point of a hip.

“You're deplorable.”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“You're absolutely bloody awful.”

“Yes,” Erik laughs, kissing the delicate skin at Charles’ groin next. He considers his friend and tilts his head to press his cheek against the pulse he can feel beneath thin skin. “Will you punish me for it?” Charles snorts and Erik grins. “Will you? Wayward manservant that I am, working against his master’s wishes and command?”

“I should send you to your room without supper and without my cock,” Charles remarks. Erik turns his pout against his friend’s stomach, just above the thatch of dark hair between his legs.

“That isn’t very fun for either of us.”

“Are punishments meant to be fun?” Charles asks, amused, as he runs a hand over Erik’s hair and tangles his fingers in his wiry auburn strands. Slowly, intently, he tightens them into a fist, grasping firmly his friend’s hair. “You know, if you want me to bend you over my knee and spank you, you could just ask.”

“Would you bend me over your knee and spank me?” Erik asks him, laugh a warm purring sound, he rubs his cheek against Charles’ hardening cock as he watches him. “I can't remember the last time you did, actually.”

“At home, I’m sure,” Charles tells him, tugging a little more to pull Erik closer. “When we had time for it.”

“We’ve time,” Erik tells him, working his bottom lip in between his teeth before letting it free. “A spanking and a good hard fuck before dinner. Where you can watch me squirm in my seat as you send me terrible thoughts of what awaits me after it, when we're free again.”

Charles regards him with a wry look and a lifted brow. Erik rubs Charles’ cock against his cheek as if he were a cat, marking and being marked all at once. He is a terror. He is a delight. He is consummately strange in far more ways than only being born with particular abilities, and Charles cannot imagine a day in which he will not be entirely too enchanted by him.

“Are you serving me,” Charles muses, “or am I serving you? And I’ve yet to hear you actually ask, Mr. Lehnsherr, for what it is that you want. Try it.”

“Now?”

“Right now,” Charles says with a smile.

Erik smiles back, and pushes himself reluctantly to sit up crawling a little closer to Charles to straddle his thighs. Setting his hands to his own, Erik takes a breath.

“Sir, may I get you a drink before we begin?”

Charles narrows his eyes and considers. “And if I let you?”

“Then I shall get one,” Erik grins. “And return. And upon my return ask sir if he would like to punish me as he sees fit - though I think a fitting punishment is a well-deserved spanking while bent across sir’s thighs - for scaring him half to death by erasing some of the CIA’s invaluable tapes.”

Charles snorts and tilts his head, and after a moment gestures for Erik to get up and get the drink he promised.

On his return, still unfortunately clothed, Charles takes his whiskey neat and patiently waits for the next part of Erik's promised act in his little game. The other tongues one sharp tooth, just beneath the lip, before acquiescing.

“Charles,” he says. “Will you punish me, please, as you see fit, for being a right asshole and scaring you half to death at the meeting today?”

“And?”

Erik narrows his eyes and purses his lips before continuing. “And for forcing you to hold back your gifts for my personal amusement while I recklessly used my own.”

_Am I pushing my luck, yet?_

Charles gives Erik a dry look and sips his rye. _Tell me that you want it._

“Desperately,” Erik responds.

The part of Charles that Erik seeks is at best a minimal part of him. Everyone loves a bit of slap and tickle now and then, but he’s hardly the cane-snapping head boy that Erik at times - such as now - wishes him to be. Charles understands though, without needing to open his perception or probe for answers, from where this impulse comes, and when it emerges in playfulness rather than distress, Charles tries to think of only that and not its source.

He thinks only of his friend before him, standing as perpetually tall and proud as he ever is, driven to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and ask for more, asking now to - for a moment of play - be removed from that burden. He thinks only of his friend’s amusement as it crinkles his eyes and his arousal as it stiffens his cock and all the good things that make Erik so particularly wonderful.

He thinks only of his friend, for whom he would do anything.

And if that means paddling his bottom instead of just tangling themselves amidst their clothes and rutting until they make a mess in their pants, as Charles envisioned, well… 

“Take your clothes off,” Charles says, fighting down a smile with a sip of whiskey. “Now.”

Erik sighs out hard and brings one hand down to work his belt as he keeps the other loose at his side. His eyes never leave Charles, not once. It’s rare that they fall into something other than just blatantly good sex. It’s rare they have the time. But once in a while, Erik wants this, wants that numbness in his head from being told what to do and how to do it. And once in a while, Charles wants the same, to have whatever thoughts tangle with his own to be pulled free touch by touch and word by word.

The belt clangs to the floor and Erik rolls his shoulders before working on the button next, and the fly after.

“You always look so lovely when you’re on the verge of telling me off,” Erik comments, his smile widening as he continues to obediently bare himself for the man before him.

“You deserve a bloody telling off.”

“I know,” Erik sighs, letting his trousers drop to the ground and stepping out of them, and thus closer to the bed again. “I really should stop pushing my luck with my equals.” His smile turns crooked as he hooks a thumb against the waistband of his boxers. “And superiors.”

Charles snorts, dismissive of the claim but not so much that he doesn’t smile from it, in spite of himself. He watches as the final swath of fabric drops softly to pool around Erik’s ankles, and follows with his gaze the path from which it came. Over strong legs covered in coarse ginger hair, up to thighs made hard with muscle, to heavy balls and a thick cock that emerges from a copse of copper and hangs heavy between his legs.

Charles swallows, mouth dry with desire for it.

He manages to take a breath, though in truth would be content to simply stroke himself off looking at the man. It wouldn’t be the first time, in reality and in his mind’s eye, that Charles has done so. He gives his own prick a quick tug just for good measure and nearly moans when Erik’s hooded gaze falls to it.

“You’re going to suck it when I’m done with you,” Charles tells him, a little breathless. He isn’t naturally inclined towards this sort of dominance but it would be hard to deny the thrill that comes with letting himself become that way for a little while. It’s harder still - impossible, really - to pretend as if the hum from Erik, felt more than heard, doesn’t carry right to his core.

Inching back on the bed, to fit the edge of it against the backs of his knees, Charles pats his leg.

“Over.”

The tremble that runs through the taller man is palpable. He knows this won’t last long, not because either of them don’t want it, but because they go about their desires a different way. He will take what he can get, however he can get it.

The tremble is far from a hesitation, as Erik steps nearer and gracefully bends, catching himself against the bedside table and slowly walking his hands down until he’s properly arched, as needed. He doesn’t hesitate, either, in turning his head to kiss against Charles’ calf with a smile.

“You were extraordinary today,” he murmurs.

Charles cannot help but bring to mind being paddled in boarding school as punishment for mouthing off and again at university as a rite of passage and, unintentionally, a ready way for him to discern who he’d find himself rutting up against the walls in short order. He stretches his fingers and rolls his shoulder, before running his hand along the plush swell of Erik’s bottom. The muscles gather tense beneath his fingers in anticipation and Charles snorts, amused.

“Would that I could say the same for you,” he says, in the poshest and strictest voice he can put on with whiskey warming his blood and Erik’s prick pressed against his thigh. He gives him another stroke, and then claps his hand down hard, watching as a perfect pink palm print darkens to red, like spilled wine soaking through a napkin.

Erik makes a sound, entirely gentle in its softness, entirely grateful in its wordlessness, and ruts down against Charles’ thigh. He makes no excuses for his actions. He curls his fingers around Charles’ ankle and strokes it fondly as he presses his toes to the floor.

Another hard clap has his lips parting and his eyes closing and Erik nuzzles another kiss to Charles’ skin. He knows just the level of frustration Charles pushed himself to, for Erik’s amusement. He knows just how difficult it had been for him to hold back from doing something so natural to him as breathing. He knows that on some level Charles is infuriated with him for wiping the tapes, just as he knows that Charles was genuinely concerned, genuinely flattered, and genuinely impressed with the act itself.

Another slap.

Another.

_I love you_. Erik’s thoughts sound as panting as the warm hot breath against Charles’ skin. More resonant still is the heat of them, the buzz like noon in midsummer, spreading outward from his reddening bottom and filling Erik - and in turn, Charles - entirely. But his thoughts are still clear enough to be heard. He is still too much in his own mind.

Until his clarity of mind is quieted to basic needs - until he seeks no more than touch and taste and comfort and closeness - Charles’ job is not yet done.

“Forbidding me to use my abilities while you spin knives and tamper with information - potentially vital information - to our government,” Charles sighs, hand stinging as a particularly vicious smack cracks Erik’s gentle sounds into a hiss of pain, and a long moan as the heat spreads. His muscles twitch involuntarily. His cock leaks against Charles’ leg. “Trying to prove no point other than that you have sway over me.”

Another spank. Another. Another, against the curve where Erik’s bottom meets his legs.

Pain. Sharp. Necessary. Welcome. Perfect.

Every touch pushes Erik farther and farther from coherent thought and deeper into a place that is dark and welcome and warm. Not the broken place, not the place filled with iron gates and crooked German words and filthy muddy roads. No, the place filled with the smell of Charles’ hair, and the tickling sensation of it against Erik’s nose, the place where coffee is hot enough to burn off a few unwanted tastebuds, and the grounds smell of petrichor and where nightmares are met with a cool hand against cold sweat and vanish before Erik can remember them.

He isn’t sure if he projects or speaks, if he makes any sound at all or if he simply blindly ruts against the man who gives him precisely what he wants, but when Charles’ hands turn gentle, Erik moans for it, deep and low, and draws his nails against the floor.

“There you are,” Charles praises him, unable - or perhaps just unwilling - to remove the warm amusement from his words. He strokes softly over the marks left blossoming against his bum, bright red and blooming violet. He will have bruises. He will sit uncomfortably for a few days. He will remember perhaps not immediately what lead to the marks but how he feels right now, with his head clear and his cock hard, and his friend flooding him with fond affection.

Charles’ hand bloody well hurts from it, too, but he has more to concern himself with than that.

“Can you get up? There you go,” Charles says, looping his arms under Erik’s own and scooting back across the bed so that his friend can lay atop him. He snorts a soft laugh against Erik’s shoulder and holds him close, one arm around his middle and the other hand in his hair, breathing against him so that Erik can slow his own shuddering sighs to match. “Took well more than I could have managed, old friend.”

Erik makes another sound and settles heavy against Charles. He allows himself to be nothing more than a weight for a moment, nothing more than something for Charles to touch and enjoy and get pleasure from. That is who he is today, that is who he wants to be.

“I won’t be able to sit still at dinner,” he mumbles, snorting softly against Charles’ chest. “Do you think they’ll find it odd if I stand behind you as a good butler would, instead?”

“Yes,” Charles laughs against his hair. “Yes, I think they’d find that very odd, so I’m afraid you’ll simply have to hope that the seats are comfortable, you silly thing.”

He cradles Erik against him, despite Erik being the much larger man. Kisses pepper his hair, warm hands stroke up and down his back and gently tug his copper strands so that one sensation never settles too long. But every touch he gives, every kiss, every breath, is gentle. Calming. Reassuring in physical contact.

Charles wonders if Erik knows that he sobbed, on the last stroke.

He would wager he does not.

“And yes,” Charles confesses. “I think you are terribly clever for wiping out their tapes of us.”

Erik smiles - Charles can feel it against his skin - and presses a kiss to his chest. Then his hands settle on either side of Charles, gently curled and holding him close. Erik makes another of those lovely feline purring sounds and lifts his eyes.

“I’m sorry I made you forgo your gift for my own amusement.”

“Are you truly?”

“After discipline like that? I would be out of my mind not to be,” Erik admits. “But I can also be honest in my admission that I rather enjoyed your squirming as you tried so hard not to break your word.”

Erik licks his lips and with a hiss, spreads his legs over Charles, where he lays on top of him. “Now, Professor, having selfishly demanded of you something we both so genuinely wanted, how may I be of service until the pretentious dinner bell calls us down to mingle with the commoners?”

“You mean when they ring up to the room?” Charles laughs, running his hands fondly over Erik’s bare thighs. Charles’ cock still points stiffly upward, nestled now beneath Erik’s welcome weight. Erik’s own has lost a bit of its get up and go, but will no doubt make a reappearance in full. “First, don’t be sorry for challenging me. Even if it’s silly. Even if it’s merely to sate your own ego and watch me fuss. Few enough people are capable or comfortable enough to do so, and I won’t lose my favorite opponent,” he says, blue eyes bright as they squint with his smile.

“Very well,” Erik agrees. “Act of service the first - give you hell, unapologetically.”

Charles laughs, reaching up as Erik leans down just enough that Charles can sweep his hair back from his brow. He cups his cheek and sighs, as one might at a puppy misbehaving - he’s naughty, but he’s adorable. “Something like that. And act of service the second…”

“Anything,” Erik says.

“I would very much - very, very much - like to feel your mouth on my cock.”

Erik _purrs_ at that, turning to catch Charles’ thumb between his lips before pulling back and bending to look down the length of them both to where their cocks stand rigid.

“Yes, sir,” he manages, voice just a little tight, cock twitching with the words, aroused and hot and lovely.

Erik doesn’t tease, not then, and as he moves down the length of Charles’ body, caressing it with tickling breath and the tip of his nose and nothing more, Charles can do little more than preen like a cat beneath him. No matter where Erik is in his mind, no matter if he trembles with anger or need or exhaustion, every time he looks upon Charles’ body, touches it, kisses it, it is a worship.

And Erik taking Charles’ cock between his lips, immediately sucking deep before letting it pop free, is a truly exquisite thing to experience. Charles’ body alights in a shiver that curls his toes and prickles up the fine hairs at the back of his neck. The sharp breath taken leaves him as a wavering laugh.

“Well, that’s that then,” he says. Erik, with a wry smile, sets his hands on Charles’ hips to move back up his body but Charles laughs harder then, pushing Erik back down by his shoulders. “Joking, I’m joking - don’t you dare come back up here until the job’s done.”

Erik’s laugh, low like the first promise of distant thunder, passes in a breath along Charles’ cock. The sinking of a kiss against his shaft is enough to lift Charles’ hips. Another, against the root, is enough to make him moan when he sighs. Charles bites his bottom lip when a long lick spreads flat and hot against him from base to tip and lets his lip slide free with a groan as the welcome heat of Erik’s mouth surrounds him entirely.

He doesn’t listen for the clicking of recording devices, nor does he reach out to silence any thoughts that might suggest their owner would consider turning them in for this crime alone. The tapes will be wiped. Dinner will be had. A quiet tension will sit between all of them, as Erik squirms in his seat and attempts gentle small talk to keep up appearances.

And after dinner they will return back upstairs and spend this night much the same as they had the one before.

Why not?

Any new hotel is an excuse for a vacation before returning home. Why not when Erik is so eager, moaning his pleasure against Charles’ groin, nose buried in the wiry hair at the base of his cock. Why not, indeed.

Charles feels almost unfairly rewarded for his good behavior and his punishment alike. Erik, despite being far from the flirtatious slut-about-town that Charles has always been, seems often far too somber to imagine indulging in more than just functional sex. He projects an air of grave sobriety, near enough to menace when something strikes a particular chord. But Charles is spoiled, terribly, to know the truth of him - to see him at ease and hear his laugh, to feel the extraordinary movements of his body when the mood sets upon them. And it does, often. Very often. Much more often than Charles even knew during his wildest university years, and he can’t help but laugh against his hand as Erik rounds his lips and sucks his friend from top to bottom and up again.

Charles lays back and loses himself to this, with shudders and twists, little laughs and heavy moans. He tilts his head aside to watch the way that Erik’s lips swell and redden, glistening, and the way a furrow creases his brow in concentration. He presents his bottom high, back arched, a perfect display through every well-honed muscle.

“I love you,” Charles sighs, the breath cut short to a hiss through his teeth as Erik presses his tongue against Charles’ slit.

It becomes a moan when Erik hums against him.

God, he is a lovely thing.

Erik keeps his hand curled around Charles as he pulls off for a moment, stroking him teasingly, twisting his wrist to tug down the foreskin and reveal the sensitive wet skin beneath. With a breathy moan he draws his lips over the tip of Charles’ cock, lifting his eyes to watch the response. It is immediate, a flattening and drawing up all at once of his friend’s body, spine curving into an upward thrust into Erik’s mouth.

He sucks the bare head, and takes him deeper still. Deep enough that Charles can press the swollen tip of his cock against the resistance at the back of Erik’s throat. Deep enough that Erik must relax his jaw further still to allow it. Already Charles’ balls are gathering snug against his body, cock throbbing along the veins and swelling along the shaft in time with his speeding pulse. With his bottom lip between his teeth, Charles keens sweetly, voice pitching higher and higher. It breaks, crashing, on a wild laugh as he glances down the length of his body and shakes his head.

_Erik - I’m going to - I’m going -_

Erik pulls back with a sigh, a thin string of precome snapping from between his bottom lip and the tip of Charles’ trembling cock.

“Don't,” he pants, pushing forth a grin as he sits up. “Don't you dare give out on me now, professor.”

Charles snorts and Erik crawls up his body to part his lips with a sloppy kiss, pressing a hand to his cheek. Charles wraps heavy arms around Erik's shoulders and hums.

“Service,” he reminds Erik sleepily, as the other nuzzles him.

“And won't I serve you better riding your cock?” Erik whispers back.

“You’ve just been spanked scarlet,” laughs Charles, eyes widening a little. “And I was - I was very close, Erik…”

“I could taste it on my tongue.”

“And you stopped!”

“And I stopped.”

“So that you could… fine,” Charles says, giving up his fluster and his concern alike. He huffs out a breath against Erik’s neck and laughs softly, nosing against his pulse and breathing him in, his sweat and the scent of his soap and everything else that together becomes intoxicating. His kiss, softly placed at first, deepens to a suckle. Erik’s body stiffens above him and he moans, the sinuous twisting of their bodies pressing their cocks together in a clumsy rut.

There isn’t any way that Charles doesn’t enjoy having it off with him, but if he’s going to go for the big finish, it’s Charles that needs a moment to steady himself. He leaves a livid mark on Erik’s throat as he lays back, licking his bottom lip into his mouth and smiling wide. Charles nods, letting his lip go with a sigh, as if put-upon.

“Do your worst, Lehnsherr.”

“Don’t I always?” Erik’s purr is sleepy and lovely, immediately driving Charles to that brink he was so close to he could taste it. Erik stretches again, enticing and teasing and beautiful, and climbs closer still to straddle Charles properly. He spits quietly into his hand and draws it back to press his fingers against himself, eyes hooded and on the man beneath him as he works himself open.

“Not going to be able to sit down or still for a week,” he murmurs, grinning wider as Charles snorts.

“Serves you right.”

“Serving is what I do,” Erik reminds him, bringing his hand back to stroke Charles up, just once, before guiding him back against himself. “With pleasure and careful dedication.”

He sinks down slowly, hissing in genuine pain when reddened skin stretches and the muscles in his thighs tense, but he doesn’t stop moving. He drops his head back and keeps one hand on Charles’ chest as his other curls around his own thigh.

“Christ,” Charles sighs out, an explosive curse as his cock is snared tight into the welcome, snug heat of his friend’s body. He lays his hands on Erik’s knees, unmoving but for his gaze that by contrast is hungry and ceaseless. He watches the way that Erik’s thighs tremble as Charles’ cock disappears into his ass. He watches how his friend’s stomach flattens in a ripple of pleasure, emerging as a moan through slow-unfurling lips.

It’s absurd, in any other moment, to think of Erik as serving. He is by nature and experience inclined as far from it as possible. In no other circumstance would Erik even think those words, let alone breathe them - never again, but for now. Here. With Charles, who feels always as if he is utterly undeserving of seeing Erik bare himself so personally.

A stiff rock upward strokes his cock with the movement of Erik’s body. Charles’ lips fall lax with a wavering groan. His nails press gentle crescents against the taut muscles and copper hair of Erik’s legs and when he sinks back, Charles presses upward, burying himself inside him completely.

“You’re a terror,” Charles whispers, adoring.

Erik hasn't the presence of mind to answer, flushed from his cheeks down to his chest and trembling with pleasure. Neither of them will last long, now, and both will doze deep and well before their formal and unwelcome dinner.

Erik squeezes his muscles and pushes up to his knees again, before sinking back down.

“I’m your terror,” he points out with a crooked grin, opening his eyes just enough to see Charles. 

Charles starts to laugh but the sound hitches short. Clicking in his throat, he moans wavering and tightens his grip on Erik’s thighs. No, not like this. He lets him go and sits up, holding his friend around the waist instead and wrestling him to his back against the bed.

Their lips meet mashing together, the change in position enough to afford them a few moments more. Charles gasps against him, skin slapping against spanked skin as he drives hard into Erik’s ass. Sweat slicks their chests together, their stomachs already flattening in pending release. Erik’s cock leaks against Charles’ stomach as it rubs between them.

Grunts and gasps rise together in the air. Charles grabs Erik’s thighs and runs his hands up to the backs of his knees. Pushing them forward he pants against his mouth, lips hovering but unable to close from the vigor, the teasing, the delay, the release that finally jets hot inside his friend, with a shattering groan from Charles Xavier. Their thighs clap together as he digs himself in deeper, knees wrinkling the bedcover and head bent back from Erik’s fingers tangled in his hair.

They freeze for a moment, both panting their pleasure into the warm air, before Erik leans nearer and presses their foreheads together.

“Christ,” he sighs, swallowing a sound of pleasure as he tries to catch his breath. His free hand comes to rest against Charles’ cheek, stroking soft beneath his eye. “Promise me we will never, ever stop doing that.”

Charles laughs at him, fondly, as he collapses heavy against his friend and lets go of his legs. They lay together twitching, gathering their breath again, hearts beating quickly towards the other. “What a silly thing to ask,” he teases warmly. “I certainly don’t plan on stopping any time soon. Do you?”

“No,” Erik replies, the word dragged long and lovely. He draws a hand over his eyes and grins wider, shaking his head before draping both arms over Charles’ back.

“Dinner?”

“I just ate, I’m afraid.”

“A shower, perhaps?”

“I’d prefer a bath, actually.”

“Sir is deliberately being contrary,” Erik points out, smiling at his friend fondly. “And I shall do my very best to please his fluttering whims.”

“Ass.”

“Certainly.”

“I love you.”

Erik's expression warms to something entirely gentle. Sleepy and vulnerable. Open and welcoming.

“I love you, too,” he promises, curling his arms around Charles as the other makes himself comfortable as a heavy cat atop him.


End file.
